If
by Dirty.Things
Summary: A series of one-shot chapters combined to form a story that uses every character in Harry Potter in unique pairings based on different outcomes of the war. Will be over 128 chapters upon completion. Drama/angst/romance/sex/horror/adventure/mystery. AU.
1. The Introduction

**An Introduction to "If"**

**Please read this, or you will probably be very confused.**

This is a series of one-shots put together in a collection that is formed by every single named character in the Harry Potter series (as listed on FanFiction). I think that our world is a lonely one, and that our favorite characters might feel that way too, and so every person or creature is paired with someone or something else so that no one is alone. These are mostly non-Canon, and nearly every pair is connected by only a fine thread. Each story takes place in a different universe. In some of these, Voldemort has won, and the survivors (or victors, as it may be) are experiencing changes in a newly dark world. In others, the side of the light has won. And in some, it is undecided or inconsequential.

These stories span every genre, so you are never quite sure what you'll get when you read one. Like I said, every character will be represented, including Morfin Gaunt, Drusilla Black, Charlus Potter, and other characters that have not been fleshed out until now. They join Harry, Hermione, the Weasley family, and the characters you know and love in a Harry Potter variety pack that is sure to thrill you, chill you, and quite possibly depress you for days on end. (Which would be awesome. Then I won't be the only one.)

_While the characters may be referenced to in other chapters, each chapter is intended to stand alone and not be influenced by other chapters._ For example, if in chapter 8, Harry Potter is dead, he is not necessarily dead in chapters 1-7 or 9-whatever unless otherwise stated.

So, without further ado, here is the list of completed stories; the other ones are being worked on. I plan to upload 1-3 per week. Thanks for reading, and please review!

_Rory McKenzie_

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**For The Entire World to See**  
>Neville Longbottom + Nagini<p>

**Moths**  
>Katie Bell + Marcus Flint<p> 


	2. For The Entire World to See

**For The Entire World to See**

Neville Longbottom + Nagini

}{}{

His wand was _not_ a sword. It was thirteen inches long and made of cherry, which was considered to be a rather feminine material, and to complete his humiliation, its core was the tail hair of a unicorn. Was that really the essence of who he was? Was he as soft and weak as they all said? His wand was a girl's wand, slim and smooth and gleaming. It was weightless in his hands, like the baton of an orchestra's conductor. It was anything but a sword.

And yet he found that he missed its reassuring wood as he raised the Sword of Gryffindor high above his head on weak and shaking arms. Later, people would say that he had wielded it like one of King Arthur's knights, Galahad perhaps, and that it had come down in a masterful arc that lopped the beast's head off and sent it rolling to Voldemort's bare, white feet.

But the truth of the matter was that after he had raised the sword above his head, he was simply unable to control its trajectory, and instead of being directed, its silver tip had fallen as the boy's arms gave up their battle. The fact that Nagini had been in the right place was merely good fortune, a rare breed of luck that had never been on good terms with Neville Longbottom before, but was nevertheless stopping in to say hello. Nagini's head did not roll towards Voldemort; a snake's head, however large, is rather flat on the top as well as the bottom. It flopped to the marble floors of the Great Hall with a rather wet-sounding splat, and its body twitched only minutely before stilling. She was dead, and no one would have to know that his display of heroics was an accident. Or worse, a result of his own weakness.

In Indian mythology, a Nagini is a member of a race or a female deity whose body is mixture of woman's flesh and the cold coils of a serpent. In Neville's panicked state, he confused the legend with the reality of werewolves: if you kill a werewolf in the thick of its transformation, it will reset to its human form.

For a long moment, he stared at the remains of Nagini, half-expecting her to shudder and convulse into a flapping, jerking human body. What would he have done if she did? But the moment passed, and she remained a snake. The battle was won only minutes later. Several hundred people celebrated, surging around pockets of despair and friends and family mourning their losses. But the crowd pressed on, and Neville found himself supported by a myriad of hands. He rode the wave of revelers, lost amongst the sound of cheering and sobbing, until he was carried out of the blinding lights of Hogwarts and into the darkness. Before he was carried over the threshold, he twisted his head to see her, laying alone and forgotten amongst the dead.

}{}{

Time had not been kind to Neville Longbottom. While his companions had aged gracefully, the toll of teaching students had worn him down, and at age fifty-four, he felt too old for his own skin. When he first started teaching, he had been full of ideas and creativity and energy, but as the years passed by, so did the children, none of them his own. The students marched in, each generation assured of their own uniqueness and individuality. Sometimes he amused himself by picking out the Draco Malfoy of the bunch, or the over-achieving bossy child, pranksters and diplomats in the making, and occasionally, a small, stuttering child unsure of his place not just in the world but in his own boots as well.

He tried to give special treatment to those tiny Nevilles, offering to let them spend extra time in the greenhouses and attempting to show them rare and unusual fauna. But the variables had changed, and perhaps he would have been successful in his attempt to befriend them if he had been an instructor of anything else. However, the cards had been dealt for him long ago, and so he accepted his fate.

And that's exactly what it was: his fate. Some people argue that fate is the same as destiny, but it's not, and Neville understood this. He did not have any sort of grand destiny in his future; events were not set in motion for him, and there was no happy ending lurking around a dark and evil corner. His faith in his life, though, was absolute, and he took every aspect of it as a given. He _belonged_ in this life, regardless of whether or not he enjoyed or hated it (and truly, it was neither; he was more in limbo than anything else), and being Neville Longbottom, he would accept it.

"Neville? Are you listening to me?"

He looked up from his stew. It wasn't very good, but it was what the tenants of the Leaky Cauldron were eating for dinner, and he didn't want to complain. "Yes, dear?"

Hannah gave her husband a calculating eye. "You weren't listening to a word I said, were you? Tell me what I was saying."

Neville cast about his mind, only to find nothing there. Swallowing a particularly mealy lump of potato, he cleared his throat and guessed. He felt as if he were jumping off of cliff and didn't quite know if he would fall or fly away. "Mrs. Gibbons, and uh..."

It was enough, and Hannah sniffed. "Precisely! I told her that she can't have a monkey in here. I said, 'Mrs. Gibbons, this is a classy establishment, and I don't care if your monkey can turn into an umbrella; I don't want it hanging about my dining area...'"

Her words faded out, and Neville pushed at the stew with his spoon. It was greasy, and he stared in dull fascination at the sparkling chips of oil floating on its surface like thousands of tiny jewels.

"She talks a lot, doesn't she?"

Neville looked up at Hannah. Though he didn't hear a word she was saying, her mouth was moving, and she wasn't paying attention to him. The woman beside her, though...

"What? I suppose you didn't think you'd see me again, did you?"

There was nothing to say, because this could not possibly be real. The woman, dark-skinned and shining, flashed a grin at him. Her teeth were strangely sharp, and the hairs on the back of Neville's neck stood up. He realized that the woman was naked from the waist up, covered in various tattoos and symbols, and he tried desperately not to look at her heavy, ovular breasts. Hallucination or not, he had been raised not to ogle, and the woman seemed to sense his distress.

"I'm sorry, but is my being nude an issue for you? It shouldn't be; it's what's _natural_. And what's natural is good for you, don't you think?" To emphasize her point, she lifted her hands to her breasts, splaying her impossibly long fingers over them. Through the gaps between her forefinger and middle finger, he could see the dark buds of her nipples.

The vision smiled. "Do you want to touch them?"

Neville nodded, and his answer seemed to be extracted from somewhere deep inside of him, gleaned from his desires and his fears. "Yes."

He felt a hand on his wrist, and suddenly, the woman was gone, and the strange, muted silence had blossomed into noise. Yes, that was what it could be described as: noise, from the clattering of tenants in their apartments to bugs scritching and scratching as they scuttled inside of the walls, wind outside the inn, and Hannah's words. The return to normalcy was harsh and grating, and he looked at his wife. "What?"

She gave him a strange look. "I asked if you were still interested in adopting a child, and you said yes, and then you just seemed to stare at me. If you're not ready-"

"Oh, no. No. That's... That's fine."

"You don't think you're too old?"

_Leave it to Hannah to never infer that _she_ is too old, even though she's a few months older than I am,_ he thought, and then he immediately felt ashamed for the passing judgment about his wife. When had he become so cynical?

"No. I'm not. I'm... I'm not feeling well; I'm going to go for a walk."

Hannah did not protest, and instead, she scraped the remains of his stew into the pot so that she might serve it to a tenant later.

}{}{

He didn't return until the lights illuminating Muggle London dimmed and darkened. Though daylight was still several hours away, the streetlights were retired for the night as if to say that anybody walking about London that late was asking for whatever terrors the night could bring.

Miles McKinley was sleeping, his head resting on the bar he was supposed to be tending. He was the night manager for the Leaky Cauldron, and Neville stared at the slumbering man for a moment before going upstairs. He should report it to his wife. What if somebody stole something while Miles was sleeping? But his concern was an obligatory thought, and he knew that he would never tell Hannah.

He slipped into his pajamas, taking care to fold his clothing and put his shoes beside the door. One time, he would have considered his pajamas to be perfect only for an old man. Now they just felt appropriate, and he knew that he belonged in plain cotton that had faded so much that it was an ongoing debate as to whether it was blue or gray.

Hannah was snoring, but Neville couldn't complain; he had a sneaking suspicion that he did, too. The sound of a soft rain beginning to fall outside drilled into his head with every patter and drop, and he thought that sleep would never claim him, but it did, and he sank into it willingly.

"Hi, Neville."

He opened his eyes. She was above him, and her hair hung down on either side of her head. Its ends brushed the fabric of his pillow, and it felt strangely sensual. "H-hello. Who are..."

She smiled. "You _know_ who I am, Neville. You should remember; after all, it was _you_ who cut off my head for the entire world to see."

"The whole world-"

"Fine, not the _whole_ world," she said, affecting an exaggerated pout. "But _my_ whole world. My whole world saw my bones and my blood and my head on that filthy floor. I can't believe you didn't recognize me!"

"I-I'm sorry, I-"

"You don't have to apologize, Neville. It was a long, _long_ time ago."

Neville stared. He became uncomfortably aware that the woman was, again, naked from the waist up. "Are you... Are you real?"

The woman gave him a pitying look. "Tell me if this feels real to you."

She lowered herself towards him, placing a chaste kiss upon his mouth. When he didn't push her away, she continued to massage his lips with hers, opening them with the tip of her pink tongue. Neville found his hands migrating to the soft mounds of her breasts; his fingers brushed over the smooth skin he found there, and he began to harden underneath his shield of blankets. The kiss deepened, and his arms wrapped around the woman, pulling her to him. Dream or no dream, he wanted this mysterious creature. He saw up-close the tattoos, and saw that they were not random designs, as he had thought, but depictions of love and death and birth, columns of human fate entwined with snapping serpents and mysterious shadows rimmed with dripping teeth.

Neville placed one hand between the woman's breasts, feeling the indentation of her tattooed sternum, and he trailed his hand lower. She was not a thin woman, and his fingers traveled along the soft, swaying curve of her stomach as he reached for that sweet apex between her legs. He did not see it, but as he reached lower, the tattoos became more violent; Mary Antoinette was laying on her hip, her head somewhere underneath the woman's navel. A ship was sinking on her side; there was a bear in a trap. It would lose its foot if it tried to escape. A man was hanged; ten thousand people died along the curve of her spine, and woven throughout the gristly scene were snakes and dragons of the sea.

Neville paused. His hand was low now, uncomfortably low, and he had not yet reached what he was seeking. Her skin was... _smooth_. Not like it had been before, like the skin of a child, but smooth like sheets of thin metal overlapping thousands of times to present a unified fabric, like... _Scales_.

He attempted to break from the kiss, but the woman was unrelenting, and he felt with great horror her tongue splitting into two distinct branches. He gathered his strength, shoving her from him, and was suddenly able to see her for what she was: starting slightly below the line of her hips, her skin turned into a dark, glimmering green trunk that curved around to form a tail. He registered this in the moment it took for the woman to regain her hold on him, and he was suffocated once more under her blistering kiss. His bottom lip split, and the cold length of the woman's tail began to wrap around his midsection, squeezing and pulsing as if it were an artery stemming from the creature. He tried to scream, and found that he couldn't. The world was silent, and he longed for the harshness of the rain, of Hannah's snoring, of the bugs and the tenants and-

"Nev! What's wrong?"

He sat up in bed, feeling his face with his hands. There was no blood or bruising or wetness at all. He patted at his abdomen. His bones weren't crushed. It was as if nothing had happened. He turned his head to Hannah. "Nagini! She... She was..."

Hannah sighed, placing a hand over her heart. "Oh, you frightened me. I thought you were... Well. It was just a bad dream. Get some sleep. And don't make so much noise."

He nodded faintly, but he would not go back to sleep. He was not sure if he _could_. Dream or no dream, _she_ was waiting for him, waiting to avenge her death, showing him what could have been, what should have been, and what would never be. Why had her memory decided to haunt him after all this time? Why couldn't she stay dead, stay gone?

Neville thought about the snake as the sword had fallen down. He imagined it from Nagini's perspective: the sword would be sharp and cold and sudden, and with a lurch, his head would have been severed from his neck, falling to the dirty, filthy floor, matted with other people's blood and gore. If he had been Nagini, the last thing he would have seen was his whole world looking back at him.

}{}{

A/N: Thoughts? Opinions? Is this a mid-life crisis? Is it a hallucination? Is there really some vengeful spirit of Nagini trying to exact revenge on him? Why was he so bothered by the snake's death? Is she real? I'd love to know what y'all think.


	3. Moths

**Moths**

Katie Bell + Marcus Flint

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"There's a hell you know and a hell you don't," he said, stroking his beard as if it were a favorite pet. He was always saying these kinds of things, and whether he was a truly wise man or a fool putting on airs, Katherine did not know. She didn't know; she didn't care, and frankly, she tried not to think about it. But what he said was true nevertheless, and it kept her on her toes, dangling in a birdcage not of metal, but fear.

"What's in the hell outside?" she asked, hating herself for the childlike quality of her voice. But she could not control that any more than she could control the weather or the wind. Captivity had a way of stripping the most essential characteristics from the captive, and without responsibility or choice, she had all but abandoned her adulthood, instead regressing to the soul of a young girl contained rather messily a body that had been taken long ago, along with her name.

Marcus Flint snorted. "I'm not about to tell you, are I, Katherine? Aren't you Gryffindors supposed to be brave? Go look for yourself."

She instinctively looked towards the row of windows lining the wall of the sitting room; each was fully covered by a single-pane blind that obscured all but the dimmest of light, and shielded her from the sights and sounds of the outside world. She wished that the windows were locked or barred or painted shut, but she knew that it would take her only a moment to open them, to run out and be bathed in the light of a sun she had not seen in over a decade. It was part of her torture, she knew. Marcus had been a bully on the Quidditch field, and time had only sharpened his commitment to cruelty. It amused him to no end that he had to do absolutely nothing to keep her by his side, and regarded her as some sort of tortoise flipped onto its back or a gerbil scrabbling at the sides of the kitchen sink. It was the worst kind of humiliation she had endured, worse than the auction block and Marcus's unwanted advances, worse than her lack of privacy or never-ending nightmares. She was her keeper, she was her jailer, and she was her judge, and Marcus loved this most of all.

"Doxy shit," he murmured, chuckling as the girl closed her eyes. "Katherine, Katherine, Katherine. _Katherine_, my darling little Gryffindor. What are you thinking about? What's on your mind?"

_The auction block. A hundred people she knew and a hundred she didn't, staring as her clothes were removed and she was forced to her knees on the hard, wooden floor. Twelve Galleons, someone had called out. The price she had paid for her wand, which had been broken less than an hour after the Dark Lord had won the war._

"Dinner," she said.

"What are you making, Katherine?" He loved to say her name, far more than what was healthy; it was as if he thought that he could make Katie go away if he called her something different. It was pathetic, but effective.

"I'm not sure. Perhaps pasta. I don't know," she said.

"I'm in the mood for some wine. Something full."

"Alright," she said.

_Thirty Galleons._

_Forty Galleons._

_Fifty. Sold to the young man in the green robes._

"Fine, then. I'm going to head over to the office. Got to finish that report for Theo. I'll be back by... Five? Six? Five, then. I'll be back by five. Have dinner ready. Good-bye, Katherine. Do yourself a favor and get some fresh air."

Katherine's face was unmoving as Marcus's laughter bounced through the hall, off one wall and to the other. It didn't have far to travel, though; the Flint family had been pure of blood, but never very wealthy, and Voldemort's regime had extended slightly beyond the reach of the war, but fizzled out when it came to implementing change in the wizarding career ladder. Marcus, whose only talent in school had been Quidditch, earned a low wage combining data from various sources to one condensed report, which was then given to Theodore Nott, a man several years' his junior. As a half-blood and a member of the now-defunct Dumbledore's Army, Katherine was not allowed to work.

She supposed that she was one of the lucky ones; those considered to be too dangerous to "keep" were disposed of in quick succession. "Undesirable" people, generally older witches and wizards, and those who were deformed or mutilated in battle were destroyed as well. In the end, she had fared relatively well. Marcus did not love her, that much was clear, but several years of competitive Quidditch had turned her into something of an obsession to the Slytherin, and so she was kept, polished and pretty like a trophy, admired and prized and disregarded as anything more than a trinket. But he did not beat her, and he no longer raped her; she found that once she had given up and stopped struggling, his ardor for her had cooled. She cooked; she cleaned. She was a wife in all but name and heart.

Katherine glanced at the windows and then back to her hands. She stood; she sat, and stood again. She performed this strange dance every day, and had from the time that she had been delivered to this dirty, ugly house by the dirty, ugly man. The closest she had gotten was several inches from the blind. She hadn't touched it yet. She couldn't, really. What strange hell was waiting for her just behind the screen? It had been bad enough to see her friends sold to the highest bidders as if they were sweets at Zonko's. She had seen Susan Bones executed because she had dared to slap away a hand caught in an inappropriate caress. More than a decade had passed, and she knew that she had withered away to nearly nothing. She was not sure that she could stand the sight of the world of which she was once a part dead and broken.

She was terrified of finding herself alone in a world of green and silver, of seeing the ones she loved gone from this life. She was afraid she would be caught by someone worse, made to work in a brothel or some similar establishment. She was afraid that she would find herself outside and have nowhere to go but back to the house and to Marcus, who would laugh hysterically as she clung to him, desperate for familiarity. This life was indeed some kind of hell, but at least it was one that she knew she could endure.

A moth banged against the ceiling of the sitting room, and Katherine's fingers twitched as she watched it destroy itself in an attempt to escape.

She missed flying.

}{}{

"Still here, are you?" came Marcus' jaunty greeting from the entrance of the house, which was, of course, never locked. The words were the same every day, or some variation thereof. And she was there every day to hear them.

Marcus Flint threw his bag and outer robes to the floor before entering the tiny, kitschy kitchen and taking a seat at the table. "Things are looking up, Katherine. Theo invited me to the pub over the weekend to work on some things. Honestly, I thought he'd never talk to me again, after I compared his kid to a house elf. Really, the little lad looks _just_ like one. But of course, Theo didn't see it that way."

She could never have children; Draco Malfoy's cursed necklace had taken care of that. She had been distraught, hysterical even, when she found out. However, enough time had passed that she was grateful to not be able to bring a child into a world ruled by Lord Voldemort.

Katherine flinched as a pair of fingers rudely entered her line of vision, snapping loudly. "_Oi!_" Marco said, furrowing his brow as he stared at her. "I was trying to tell you something. Pay attention, Katherine. Where's your head at today?"

_Bt. Bzt. Btt. Pt_. The moth was banging into the ceiling again. _Curious._ She had assumed that it was dead. It was a resilient little thing, never giving up.

"Katherine. Katherine. Katherine! KATIE! _KATIE BELL!_"

Her eyes snapped towards Marcus, whose face was now a particularly unattractive shade of crimson. "What?"

Marcus sighed, leaning back in his chair as he rapped his fingers on the table. "You're getting weird, you know. Weirder than usual. What are you thinking about?"

_Katie,_ she thought. _I'm thinking about Katie Bell and moths and the wind in my hair and air on my face. But mostly Katie._

"The wine," she said. Something had changed.

}{}{

The moth was dead. There was no way around it this time; she saw it lying on the floor, powder-soft wings folded into the shape of a V. She prodded it, only to find that there was no movement, and a small wave of grief washed over her. It was almost as if she had lost a friend. It was hard not to admire such an insignificant creature that spent its last breath searching for something it loved.

Katherine picked it up between her fingers, carefully balancing it on one finger so not to crush its tiny body. It seemed wrong, somehow, to throw it into the trash or to release it into the black abyss of the sink drain. It had tried so hard to break free, and she felt that it deserved the daylight it had been seeking for days, even if it was a little too late.

She looked at the window, and then at her hands. She stood, she sat, she stood. It was the dance. She crossed the floor, one foot before the other, until she was at the row of windows. It was not out of courage or strength that she touched the blind at last; it was for the moth, the brainless bug, that she opened up the window, and as she crawled out, eyes shut tight against the glare of sunlight, she let herself fall, not sure of what to expect. But her toes touched the tips of grass, and she laughed as the soft blades tickled her skin as if they were greeting a long-lost friend. She released the moth, smiling as its body was carried off by the breeze.

She had touched the sill, lifted the blind, opened the window, and crawled out for the moth. But as she began to run away from the tiny house and towards the lights of the nearby town whose name she did not know, she knew that it was Katie for whom she ran.

}{}{

A/N: I like this one because it's really depressing, but at the same time, she managed to escape! Then again, she could be running off to a place fifty times worse than where she was at before, but at least she's trying again, you know? I'd love to know your thoughts and opinions, so if you want to review, that would rock! I'm working on the third chapter now.


	4. Tuesday's Memories

**Tuesday's Memories**

Draco Malfoy + Poppy Pomfrey

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When I woke up on Tuesday morning, I didn't know my name. I didn't know what year it was, though I certainly knew the decade, and I had absolutely no idea where I was or what that awful _thing_ was on my arm. It ached, as if it were a tattoo newly minted, and yet I was loathe to explore it with my fingertips. It smacked of the devil himself, sharp and cold against my tongue, which felt far too thick to fit into the interior of my mouth. It was then that I noticed the painful gashes and marks encircling my wrists and torso, and I realized that something in my life had gone _terribly_ wrong.

A quick look into the mirror over my vanity (as opposed to the one set into the vanity, or the one above my bed, or the one above the headboard, or the one lining a row of closets on the far side of the suite—yes, whoever I was, I seemed to love looking at myself) brought back no sudden rush of memories or infusion of feeling. I was looking at a young man, perhaps twenty-two or twenty-three. I suppose you could say that I was handsome; I had a full mouth, a pair of expressive, gray eyes, and a simple, Roman nose, all set upon a pale face with a rather pointed chin.

The red silk robe I wore caught my eye, and I peered with some excitement at the name embroidered on its left breast.

_Romilda._

"Romilda?" I said aloud, looking between my reflection and the embroidery, and the mirror once again. Was that a woman's name? I couldn't tell. Good Heavens, was I some sort of... Sort of...

I swallowed. Perhaps... Yes, perhaps it was just an unusual name. A rather unusual _man's_ name. For me. Romilda. I was Romilda, I was sure of it.

"Romilda," I said to my reflection. "Hello, Romilda. I am Romilda. I am Romilda and it is _lovely_ to meet you all. This is a fantastic party, really top notch."

I looked down at my fingernails, which were buffed, even, and clearly done by professional hands. Oh, heavens and stars.

}{}{

Despite my suspicions about my sexual proclivities, I was determined to dress according to my sex. And, apparently, my _status_. When I swung open the doors to those mirror-covered closets, I was dazzled by the array of suits and evening wear lining each row and rung. While astonished (and somewhat impressed by my own incredible sense of taste), I pulled on the nearest shirt and pair of pants, not caring whether or not they matched.

I thought about trying to wash my face or comb my hair, but frankly, these were the least of my concerns. (Also, I looked rather dashing all rumpled and rustled, if I do say so myself.)

After a final glance over my ensemble, I decided to brave the door leading out of the suite. The exit lead to a long, bland corridor lined with beige marble and taupe wall paint. There were other doors studding the walls on either side of the hall. I looked, but there was no one approaching from either side, and so I sprinted off towards the nearest one. I wrapped my perfect hand around the shining knob of the door, taking a moment to admire my reflection, and then turned the handle before cautiously peeking inside.

"Get out!"

"W-who are you?" I stammered.

The man glared at me with an officious expression over the considerable bend and hook of his nose. He was older, perhaps forty-five or so, and clad in billowing black robes. What was more interesting than the man in the room, however, was the room itself: the ceiling, walls, and floors were composed of a dark stone material that glistened as if it were damp. Rows of shelving stocked with jars filled with all manner of substances lined the walls, and the central point of the room was the bubbling, roiling cauldron at which the man stood.

"Who am I? You know who I am! I'm the... I'm the Pr... I am S... I am a teacher," he finished lamely, gazing at me with confused black eyes. "I think I'm a teacher. But there are no students. Are you my student?"

I shook my head slowly as I backed out of the room and gently closed the door. As I walked away, I vowed to myself that I would not enter another one of these strange rooms, but then I heard the telltale patter of small feet. A child? No, it was a strange elf-like creature heading towards me with its arms full of fabric. I did not have time to find out what it was or what it could do to me; instead, I launched myself towards the nearest door and hurled myself into the room with little caution.

Fortunately, it seemed to be empty. "Hello? Is anybody here?" I asked just in case. No one answered, and I relaxed. This room was much nicer than the last; there were lit candles on every available surface; a large bed swathed in a multitude of diaphanous fabrics was at the center of the room. Makeup, beauty supplies, fine clothing, lingerie, mirrors, and magazines were scattered amongst plush, inviting pillows that were strewn liberally over the floor's cream-colored carpet. It was extremely luxurious and sensuous. I heaved a sigh of relief.

Suddenly, something ahead of me moved, but when I looked closer, nothing was there. A strange sensation came over me; it was as if I was being watched. Slowly, I turned, and then I saw her.

She might have been beautiful once, but her face and what I could see of her chest was scarred as if by the claws of an enormous beast. There were teeth marks around her jaw, but despite the pink and red tissue marring her face, there was some feminine quality about her. Her golden hair fell in curly tumbles over her body, which was wrapped in a sumptuous maroon evening gown. The girl was a frightening sight, but at least she wasn't screaming. This was not nearly as bad as the angry, confused man in the previous room.

"Hello?" I asked. "What's your name?"

She simply stared at me with large blue eyes. She seemed impossibly melancholic, and I wondered how old those scars were. "Can you talk?"

As I watched, tears gathered in her eyes and then fell in large, round drops down her mutilated cheeks. I had been wrong—this was so much worse than the man in the other room. I had to leave, strange creature or not in the hallway. The girl did not follow me as I left.

The hall seemed bright after my time in the dim den. Fortunately, the little gremlin-thing was not around. The corridor seemed endless, but I was anxious to escape this particular version of Hell, and so I began to run.

}{}{

It didn't end with the scar-faced girl. I saw a rather handsome man (though not as handsome as I am) surrounded by enormous piles of letters that he was signing; he didn't even notice when I entered, ate one of his biscuits, and left.

There was a girl who screamed and never stopped; I saw an older woman in a strange vulture-topped hat who was sitting in a rocking chair in the middle of some domestic living room. She offered me some tea, but only if I combed my hair.

A stout, red-haired man was wheezing through his laughter, surrounded by toys and mirrors. He had only one ear, and whenever I tried to speak to him, he looked up at me only to double up once again in hysterical giggles.

What was this strange place? I didn't belong here; I was incredibly handsome and charming, I'm sure. I was... I... I didn't know who I was. And, apparently, my name was Romilda.

I was not any more upset when a large, strong woman appeared out of nowhere and wrapped her arms around my middle than I had been earlier throughout my strange day, and when we disappeared with a light popping sound, I honestly can tell you that I was not surprised.

We appeared back in the quarters in which I had awoken, and the woman released me. I staggered, disoriented, and the backs of my calves hit the frame of my bed; I tumbled onto the covers and then sat up, trying desperately to hold onto whatever dignity I had left. Above all else, I wanted to be calm and rational—the other people that I had seen inspired me to try my hardest to be sane.

"I... Am I in Hell?" I asked the woman.

She clucked her tongue at me. "It's funny, lad, that of everything you remember, it's a religion you don't even believe in."

"I don't?"

"No! Goodness me, no. It's certainly interesting, though. I always do find these chats with you quite fascinating."

I couldn't help but feel annoyance. I wanted answers, not chit-chat or muddled words! "What is your name? Can you at least tell me that, or is clarity a rare commodity these days?"

She smiled at me warmly. "Oh, dear. I'm Madame Pomfrey, but you can call me Poppy. You've been calling me that for a few years now. I'm the woman who has been taking care of you since you've come here."

It took a few moments, but then her message sunk in. Suddenly, some of what I had experienced was clear to me: somehow, I had sustained some kind of memory loss. I was relieved—even if I didn't remember who I was before, surely I could begin to build my life anew now that I was functioning correctly.

"Fantastic. Alright. Lovely. Well, I'm here now, and I'm ready to do whatever it takes to get back into my old life—or a new life, really, any kind of life. Well, not any kind—"

Poppy shook her head. "No, dear."

"But... If something happened to me... What happened? Why am I here? Can't I leave?"

She reached out and took my hand in hers; her skin was thin and wrinkled, and it felt like crinoline to me. This was strange; it was very odd—though I didn't remember much, this felt familiar to me. "Please, Poppy, tell me what happened to me."

Poppy pursed her lips. "There was a war, dear, and you were part of it. It was like any other war: there were some bad people and some good people and they couldn't live in the same world, so they had to fight."

"So... A bad person did this to me?"

She was silent.

"I... I wasn't a bad person, was I? _Was I? _Is that why I'm here? Is this some kind of punishment?"

"Oh, no, darling, you weren't a bad person. Things happened on both sides—"

"It's because of this, isn't it?" I ask, brandishing the arm with the insidious tattoo. "It's this _thing_—"

"No! No, child! It was years ago that this happened, and you were another person. You're not that boy anymore."

"No, I'm not whoever I used to be; I'm some freak in a nuthouse!"

Poppy sharply sucked in her breath. Apparently, I had offended her. "You are not a freak, and this is not a house of crazy people. It is a haven for people who had tough luck and hard times, who need the comfort of things that this new world can't provide."

"The girl with the scars?"

The woman shook her head. "She needs to feel beautiful, but she can't be anymore. So we made the room beautiful. She seems to like that."

"And the man in the dungeon?"

"Ah, Severus. He was your professor; he was a double agent in the war. He can't take noises, or people, or mentions of anything that can't be categorized and stuffed into a jar. It's quite sad; he was possibly our greatest hero."

"And now he's in the cra— The _haven_."

"Aye, boy."

"So why am I here? What does this room give me that I don't have?"

Poppy smiled sadly. Her skin was nearly translucent; she must have been seventy years old. "You need to be in control."

I laughed; it came out more as a bark than anything else. "Control? How does this room signify _control?_"

"It was designed to make you feel wealthy and powerful. The mirrors, the closets. It's quite luxurious. It's meant to make you feel like you're lounging in bed all day because you can and you want to. You never had much control before your accident; now it's all we can give you."

"But not today."

"No, boy, not today. Not some days; you wake up and wander about. You don't normally get as far as you did today, though."

I looked down at my feet. Though I was fairly tall, they dangled several inches off the floor. The bed was expansive and covered with the finest of fabrics. Even now, though I knew it was a trap, I wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed and sleep the day away. Still, I wasn't sure how long this scrap of clarity would last, and I wanted to take advantage of it. "Do I have any family?"

"Yes, your father and your mother."

"And do they..."

"No."

I clenched my fists. "You could lie, you know. You could tell me that they come and see me every day, and that everybody misses me."

"It wouldn't matter, boy. It never matters."

"And why is that?"

She cocked her head to the side. "Because you won't remember this tomorrow."

"Are you sure?"

"You've never remembered any other time I told you."

"Well, then. Is there anything else I should know?"

Poppy reached out to ruffle my hair. I jerked away, and her hand returned to her broad lap. "You should know that in the end, you did the right thing. That's why you're here, Draco."

"Draco?"

"That's your name, love."

"I thought it was Romilda. The robe—"

"Oh, no, darling. The house e— The laundry must have gotten mixed up. That's a new one, though. Romilda... All the times I've done this, all the times we've had this chat, you've never thought you were Romilda Vane before."

"I'm glad I could amuse you," I said wryly.

"I'm glad you're handling this well," she replied. "Now, I'm going to go get you some replacement robes. I'll be back soon, and then we'll chat some more and I'll fill you in. Until then, you can take a nap. You must be exhausted, poor thing. Is that alright?"

We both knew that she wasn't going to come back while I was still this difficult boy trapped in the fog. She would come around later, when I'll be stupid and ignorant and there will be no part of me that reminds her of all the loss in our lives. But I nodded, because she was right; I was awfully tired. She stood up, leaving behind a deep imprint in the bedspread, and walked over to the door.

I bit my lip. "Wait... Before you go, Poppy, would you... Would you do me a favor?"

She paused before turning, and when she looked at me, I saw pity in her eyes. "What is it?"

"Next time I... Next time that I wake up, would you please... Tell me something different. Tell me that I was a good guy, that I'm going to be alright. Tell me that my family is coming for me, that they've visited every day."

Poppy nodded. "Aye, Draco. I'll do that. Sleep well."

With that, she closed the door behind her, and I laid down on the bed and pulled the covers up over my chest until I was cocooned in warmth and comfort. Several soft notes of music began to play as if by magic, and I settled in against the pillows, waiting for sleep to take me to a better place.

}{}{

A/N: This is dedicated to Shaleice. You wanted Draco, you get Draco. I hope you like it. :P


	5. Remus Lupin Dies

**Remus Lupin Dies**

}{}{

"We're in a bladder," he said flatly.

His companion stirred slightly. "Come again?"

"A bladder. A hollow pocket of sorts. That's what this is. We're in a bladder under the Ministry."

"_Under_ the Ministry? It's already underground! Christ, how far down _are_ we?"

Remus Lupin sighed as he allowed his head to fall back against the wall composed of shattered stones and chunks of marble. "Three hundred, perhaps four hundred feet. Give or take."

"Give or take what?"

"Well, if the Ministry collapsed _before_ we fell, we could be as close to a hundred feet under the surface. If we fell first, or as it collapsed, we're... We're pretty far down."

The other man coughed. "But they know we're here, right? Tonks, Neville, everybody—they'll come find us, right? They _have_ to. They're going to."

"And how are they going to find us? Our wands are fuck-all; they could be anywhere. If the Dark Lord's people find us... Well, let's just say we'd be better off here."

For a few moments, there was silence, and then the other man spoke. "I never thought I'd die like this. After everything I've been through—crushed to death by _rocks_."

"Don't talk that way. Half of dying is accepting it. You've got to fight to the last breath; you know that. You _taught_ me that," Remus said.

"Well, excuse me, Remus, but you're not the one with his legs under a bloody boulder, are you?"

"Oh, come on!" the older man snapped. "Even if we're going to die here—and that's a big if—we're not going to spend our last fucking time on this fucking planet talking about death, are we? Talk about... Talk about something good."

"Well, I'm not cold. It's actually quite warm under this boulder."

"Merlin," Remus muttered under his breath. "If I had somewhere to go, I'd go there right now just to get away from you."

"From me?" the other man said, slightly hurt.

"Well. No. You know what I mean. I just... God, how could this have happened?"

The other man coughed some more. "It wasn't your fault," he said in a kindly voice. "It wasn't anybody's, really. Hermione made us the potions and charmed the clothing, and Draco got us in. Molly... Molly provided the distraction," he said, and his tone darkened.

Molly Weasley had given her life for the cause; he remembered the triumphant look on her face before she was stunned and sent to Voldemort. She knew that she had given them time to slip into the Ministry. Her existence had been justified by her children; her death would be justified by the mission made successful by her sacrifice.

"Everyone did their part," the younger man finished.

Remus kicked at a rock in the way of his foot, and the stones around them grumbled and groaned as if in protest of the mistreatment of their brother. "Yes, well. I don't want to think about it. Or _talk_ about it."

"Fine. Talk about something else, then."

"Like what? The weather?" Remus snapped.

"I feel like we're reversing roles now. You're supposed to be the positive one, aren't you? I'm stuck under a rock. You have to be the cheery one."

"Alright, then. Why don't you talk about... Your best memory. What's your best memory?"

The other man was silent for nearly a minute before speaking. "The first time I saw her. I mean, _really_ saw her. And then I found out she felt the same way I did—it was like magic. I mean, not like wave-your-wand magic, not like the castle or the spells. It was something else altogether. It made all the bad stuff worth it. You know?"

"I know exactly what you mean."

"Tonks?"

Remus let out a bark-like laugh that was as bitter as it was short. "No, no. Not like Dora. That's... That's another thing altogether."

"How so?"

"Well... No, I shouldn't say. I've got—"

"No, please, go on. It's not like I'm going to live to tell anybody what you've said. And I think... I mean, if we're going to go, we should go honestly."

Remus began to speak, but then he paused. "I... She didn't get pregnant after the wedding. We found out about the baby and decided to get married."

"But... Well, that's alright. I mean, it's just timing. It doesn't matter, if you two love each other—"

"I didn't. She did. I just thought... I thought it was the honorable thing to do. I didn't realize that it was going to be forever. I mean, obviously I _knew_ that. But it's another thing to say 'I do,' and another to wake up every morning, to say things you don't mean so she doesn't get upset, to hate yourself for doing the right thing."

"Wow," the other man said. "I never knew you felt that way. I always thought you two..."

"No," Remus said. "But it's not like I was missing out on anything I could've had otherwise."

"What do you mean? Is there someone else?"

"No, not now. But there was, a long time ago, long before I met you or Dora or anybody else."

"Who was it?"

"... Complete honesty, you said?"

"That's right."

"His name was Adam."

"_What?_" the other man exclaimed as he instinctively attempted to scramble upright. But the motion jarred the boulder under which he was trapped, and their flimsy hollow trembled. Pebbles, rocks, and dust rained down from the ceiling and pelted Remus and his companion before clattering to the ground.

"Watch it!" Remus said as he brushed rubble from his gray hair and shook it out into the hollow. "You can't move. For all you know, it's you and that fucking boulder that's keeping the rocks from crashing down and crushing us!"

"Your other person was a bloke?"

"Yes," Remus pronounced emphatically. "It's nice to see the reaction my _honesty_ has gotten me. I thought you would be surprised, but this—"

"No, no," the other man said hastily. "I didn't mean it was a bad thing. I was just surprised. I mean, you've been with Tonks for, what, twenty years?"

"Twenty-three. And seven months."

"Ah. I see. Well, that... That makes a lot more sense now that I'm thinking about it. It certainly explains a lot."

"And what do you mean by that? You don't think people can tell, can you?"

The other man began to chuckle, but his laughter was broken up by bouts of violent coughing. This time, it took him longer to reply, and Remus's anxiety began to grow.

"Are you alright?"

"No, Remus, I'm not alright. And to answer your question, no, I don't think anybody can tell. It just makes sense to me because I know you better than they do."

"I suppose."

Somewhere above them was the surface, fresh air, and sunlight, and just when Remus accepted the fact that he would never experience these things again, there was a sound.

_Tap. Tap._

"Hey! What does that sound like to you?" he asked his companion.

The other man stirred, but did not reply.

Remus stood up and brushed his hands over the course, uneven surface of their shallow ceiling. The noise continued as he pressed his ear to the nearest rock.

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

"It's someone on the surface!" he announced excitedly. "We can't be that far off—maybe a hundred feet, maybe less. Someone's going to dig us out! Are you hearing this? Is it just me? Someone's coming to save us!"

"I think I'm coughing up blood," his companion replied.

}{}{

It was supposed to have been a relatively easy mission. They had been partners ever since Minerva McGonagall's execution nearly a decade earlier. They had rarely lost a battle, but when they did, the results were devastating. There thousands of Death Eaters when the war had begun, but as the economy faltered and it seemed the scales were tipping, more people joined the side of the Dark Lord until they numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

The Ministry had been corrupt for years, and it should have been relatively easy to destroy it. They came equipped with Polyjuice potion, enchanted uniforms, and Muggle and magical explosives. Draco risked his life to get them in, and Molly had given hers to keep them there.

But something had gone wrong; the first explosions had gone off while they were still setting the second set, and the floor had disappeared underneath their feet. They fell though darkness, through shifting panels of wall and wood and stone, the Ministry and the world collapsing all around them.

They had leveled Hogwarts when it became irrevocably occupied by Death Eaters. Godric's Hollow became a battleground; Hogsmeade was a barren ghost town. They had survived Death Eaters and betrayal and the loss of those they loved, and all it took was a mistimed explosive to seal their fate.

Yes, it should have been easy. What went wrong?

}{}{

The tapping sound had grown louder, and more rock and silt streamed from the ceiling.

Remus tapped the shoulder of his companion. "It's okay. You'll be alright. You just have to hang on. They're coming; they'll be here soon."

The other man's breath was ragged and rough when he spoke. "How do you know it's us? It could be _them_."

"I _don't_ know. But I've got to hope, and so have you. You just have to hold on."

"Come on, Remus. My legs are done for and I'm coughing up blood. It's getting... It's getting worse by the minute. I'm not gonna make it."

"Please don't say that," Remus begged. "Not just because you're my partner and I need you. _We_ need you; we'll be lost without you. If you die, everybody will split—you know that."

"I'm sorry, Remus."

The tapping continued, but it was still too far away, and Remus bent over companion, clasping his hand over his friend's hand, and sobbed.

}{}{

"_Hey, Adam!"_

"_Hello? Oh, hey, it's you. I didn't think I'd see you here."_

_Remus grinned. "Well, you know, I heard that the town council really goes all out for this, so I thought I'd show my face and see what's going on."_

_Adam smiled warmly. "I'm happy to hear that. It wouldn't have been the same without you."_

"_Really?" Remus's heart skipped a beat, and with a bolt of panic, he realized that he was acting too enthusiastic. "I mean... Really, yeah. Well, I'm here."_

"_Uh-huh. Well, let me show you around. They're doing a historical reading down in the square, but then there's going to be fireworks. I know a good place to watch 'em. Come on, let's go!"_

"_Alright," Remus replied as the other boy ran off ahead of him. He was amazed that it was so easy—that he had found this wonderful person, and that Adam felt the same way him as he did about Adam. He didn't know how he would tell his friends back at Hogwarts when summer ended, or if he would even tell them at all. But the night was short, and he wanted to spend every minute of it with Adam, and so with one last look at the lights of the town, he ran._

}{}{

"You know what you could do," the other man said.

Remus closed his eyes. "I could, but I'm not going to."

"If you care so much about them—"

"How can you ask me to do that, especially after what I've told you? You're asking me to trade one life of lies for another. I can barely handle this one, let alone what you're suggesting."

The man on the ground coughed, and this time, his whole body was wracked with painful, heaving spasms. "R-Remus—you've got to. There's no other way. This is bigger than you."

"I know, and that's why I can't do it. I can't be you—"

"Yes, you can, Remus."

"They won't buy it."

"They'll believe it b-because they'll want to believe it. Please, Remus."

"Fuck you. You know that? _Fuck__you_."

"That's the spirit, Remus."

}{}{

"_I'm pregnant," Dora said. Her eyes were shining, and she gazed at him as if there was no war, as if they didn't face death twice a week._

"_I see," Remus replied. He looked at her. She had pretty eyes and nice skin. She was kind and funny and energetic, and now a part of him was growing inside of her. She was completely innocent in all of this; she didn't know about him and his past—how could she? Dora didn't deserve to be saddled with an unwanted child because he had been lonely and desperate._

_He slowly bent one knee as he descended to the floor. He looked at it, at the planks of wood creased with dirt and caked with dust before he took her hand in his._

"_Nymphadora Tonks, would you do me the honor of marrying me?" he asked._

_Dora sniffed as she looked down at him in admiration and love. "Of course I will. Of course I'll marry you," she said, and a tiny part of Remus died._

}{}{

_Tap. Tap. "Hello, is anybody down there?"_

"Alright," Remus said when the silence had gone on too long. "I'll do it. Are you happy?"

The other man's breathing was labored as he tried to speak. "Thank... you. Remus."

"Oh shut up," Remus said as he fished in his jacket pocket for the third vial on the right. He grabbed a lock of his hair and savagely yanked it out before adding it to the potion, which fizzled and boiled as if it too protested its use. He then grabbed several chunks of his companion's hair and ripped the out, ignoring the man's moans. He felt around for his friend's face, noting that it was slick with a warm, sticky liquid—blood—and tipped the potion into his mouth. Immediately, his companion's body began to buck and convulse, and the younger man let out an unholy scream as his limbs lengthened under the portion of rock that pinned him to the floor.

"_I hear someone down there! Someone's screaming! We've got to hurry!"_

The tapping evolved into the clacking sound of rocks, and they both knew that it was only minutes before they were discovered.

Remus leaned forward and hugged his friend to him. "I've got to do this—you know I've got to do this."

"Thank you," his companion whispered. "I'm sorry."

"I am, too," Remus said as he wrapped his hands over the contours of the other man's face. He leaned down, pressing one elbow on the man's chest and the other on his forehead as if he needed every bit of energy inside of him to complete the mission.

The younger man jerked; his reflexes made him wiggle and move in an effort to escape suffocation. But Remus was strong, and within a minute, the younger man had ceased to move.

"_Hello? Are we close to you? You've got to tell us where you are. Can you say anything?"_

With shaking hands, Remus reached inside his pockets for the second potion. He added a strand of his friend's hair to it and then pocketed the rest.

"Here's to you," he murmured as he drank the draught in one swallow. It was as if snakes were blooming and blossoming in his stomach; his limbs constricted and his features rearranged themselves as he attempted not to vomit.

"_Hello? Are you still alive?"_

He looked up at the ceiling of the hollow. "I'm alive!" he called. "I'm down here! I'm alive!"

"_Alright, don't move! We're moving the rocks aside now. We'll be there in a minute! Is there anyone else with you?"_

Remus closed his eyes. "Just me! Please—come get me!"

"_We're coming."_

Though it was darker than night in the hollow, as black as black could get, Remus looked over towards his friend, his companion. "I'll do my best," he promised the body.

Tiny streaks of light illuminated the edges of the rocks and marble above him. "Hello," he said. "I'm right down here. Can you tell where I am?"

He heard a woman's voice, strong and kindly. "Yes, don't worry. I'm right here. Here, we can chat while I pull you out. What's your name?"

Remus looked once more at his friend before touching his hand to the man's face. He picked up that famous pair of glasses that had been broken countless times and repaired countless more by Hermione, that had seen death and Dementors, merpeople, dragons, and the Golden Snitch. He placed the pair on his own face, noting how it settled above the bridge of his new nose as if it were a part of him. In a way, it was.

"Harry," he said as the rocks above him were lifted and sunlight began to stream into the hollow. "My name's Harry."

}{}{

A/N: God, that's a bit heavy, isn't it? Tell me truly: how long did it take you to figure out it was Harry? (If you didn't figure it out, who did you think it was?)

This is to honor SycamoreTree's request. She wanted the next chapter to have Remus Lupin, so I'm curious to see what she (and the rest of you) think about it.

Does anybody have a suggestion for the next character(s)?


End file.
